Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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obdurate Scots.

In July, French ships harried the south coast. The King went down to Portsmouth to review his fleet and

oversee operations. On 19 July, as the French lay off the Isle of Wight, Henry was standing on the

battlements of Southsea Castle, watching the “Great Harry” lead his ships out of the Solent to do battle.

Suddenly, the Mary Rose, with all hands on board, keeled over and sank. More than six hundred men

drowned, and their cries could be heard by the horrified King.

“Oh, my gentlemen! Oh, my gallant men!” he cried, then turned to comfort Lady Carew, the wife of Sir

George Carew, Vice Admiral of the Fleet, who had gone down with the stricken ship.

The loss of the

Mary Rose was a terrible blow to Henry, yet despite it the English fleet still managed to trounce the

French and send them packing.

Afterwards, Henry departed on a hunting progress, feeling so confident of the “valour and affection of

his subjects” that he could safely leave the defence of his kingdom to them, having arranged for regular

reports to be sent to him.

He stayed three nights at Nonsuch, inspecting works he had ordered to be

carried out in May, when he had complained that the workmen were making slow progress with

completing the palace. This time, he was here with the court, and a forest of tents sprang up in the

gardens to accommodate everyone, while furnishings and tapestries were brought from Whitehall to

make the house fit for the King.

Dwindling funds had brought to a halt the King’s passion for property acquisition. The last house

Henry acquired was Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire, which he purchased from Charles Blount,

Lord Mountjoy, in 1543.

On 22 August, while the court was at Guildford, the Duke of Suffolk, who had accompanied the King

on progress, died unexpectedly. Henry was stricken at the loss of one of his oldest and most loyal

friends, and arranged for the Duke to be buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, at his own expense.

He told the Council that, for as long as Suffolk had served him, he had never betrayed a friend or

knowingly taken unfair advantage of an enemy. None of those present could say as much, he added, his

gaze bearing down on them. Young Henry Brandon, now eleven, succeeded his father as Duke of

Suffolk, while the late Duke’s widow, Katherine Willoughby, continued to rule over his vast estates in

Lincolnshire. William Paulet, Lord St. John, Chamberlain of the Household, was promoted to Lord

Great Master in Suffolk’s place.

Norfolk had taken over Hertford’s command in France, but quickly proved so incompetent that the

King recalled him and gave him perhaps the most blistering dressing-down of his careeer, accusing him

of acting “clean discrepant from our commandment,” and warning him that in future he must “study

and seek our honour, herein somewhat touched, redubbed.”

Surrey was chosen to replace his father in France. For a year now, the Earl had been occupied with the

building of a fine new mansion, Mount Surrey, near Norwich.

In September 1545, he was appointed

the King’s Lieutenant General in charge of all the land and naval forces in France. Once installed at

Boulogne, he served the King with such ostentatious valour that both Henry and Paget felt obliged to

rebuke him for putting himself at unnecessary risk.

The Council were not so impressed by Surrey’s

lavish overspending, nor the inefficiency of his administration.

On 6 November 1545, Katherine Parr published her first book, a devotional work entitled Prayers or

Meditations, wherein the Mind is Stirred Patiently to Su fer all Afflictions, which was printed by

Thomas Berthelet. Although strongly evangelical in tone and content, it did not overstep the bounds of

orthodoxy, and appeared with the King’s full approval. It was very rare in early Tudor England for a

woman to publish a book: only seven other women did so during the reigns of the first two Tudors.

Katherine’s book immediately became very popular, especially among her own sex, and went through

nineteen editions in the sixteenth century. On the strength of its reputation, the Universities of Oxford

and Cambridge both asked the Queen to become their patron, an honour she took pleasure in accepting,

and Nicholas Udall dedicated to Katherine his translation of the Gospel of St. Luke.

In 1544, Roger Ascham had completed his brilliant satirical treatise Toxophilus, which was ostensibly

about archery—“a pastime honest for the mind, wholesome for the body, fit for every man, vile for no

man”— yet also contained a pithy summation of the state of the realm and a plea for English to replace

Latin as the language of humanism. Ascham had long hoped to present his work to the King, but the

French war had intervened, and it was not until 1545 that he obtained—probably through the good

offices of his friend and patron Sir Anthony Denny—an audience of Henry, who received him in the

gallery at Greenwich and “did so well like” the book that he immediately awarded Ascham a pension of

£10 (£3,000), thus opening the way to further court patronage.

Henry—and the reformists—lost another supportive friend in November 1545 when Sir William Butts

died. Dr. Thomas Wendy replaced him, but he lacked the intellectual stature of Butts, whose

ministrations were greatly missed when, in the winter, the King suffered yet another bout of illness.

Van der Delft reported on Christmas Eve that Henry was “so unwell that, considering his age and

corpulence, fears are entertained that he will be unable to survive further attacks.”

Nevertheless, on that same day, the King went to Westminster and addressed Parliament for what was

to prove the last time in his reign. With unusual humility, he thanked the Speaker for his speech

reminding him of his duty as sovereign, “which is to endeavour myself to obtain and get such excellent

qualities and necessary virtues as a prince or governor ought to have, of which gifts I recognise myself

both bare and barren. But for such small qualities as God has endowed me with, I render to His

goodness my most humble thanks.” After complaining that “that most precious jewel, the Word of God,

is now disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern,” he exhorted his subjects, “Be

in charity one with another, like brother and brother. Love, dread and serve God, the which I, as your

sovereign lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league shall never be

dissolved nor broken between us.”

His speech had a profound impact on his listeners: one M.P.

commented, “To us that have not heard him often, it was such a joy and marvellous comfort as I reckon

this day one of the happiest of my life.”

In 1545, so as not to weary the ailing King with routine business, a “dry stamp” bearing his signature

was brought into use, in order to validate official documents.

The stamp left an imprint of the royal

signature, which was inked in by persons authorised to forge it, namely Sir Anthony Denny, Sir

William Herbert, Sir William Paget, Sir John Gates, and William Clerk, all trusted members of the

Privy Chamber. Only three of these men were permitted to use the stamp at any one time, while the

other two were designated to act as witnesses. Initially, the King himself kept the stamp, but he later

gave the stamp, in its black bag, to Gates for safekeeping.

“Painful Service”

On 1 January 1546, the antiquary John Leland presented Henry VIII with “A New Year’s Gift”—a

written summary of his researches into the treasures of England’s religious houses and the antiquities of

England. “I have conserved many good authors,” he wrote in his dedication, “the which otherwise had

been like to have perished; of the which, part remain in the most magnificent libraries of your royal

palaces.” Henry had already rewarded Leland with ecclesiastical offices, but Leland preferred to stay in

London and preserve his links with the court while writing up his notes. Sadly, his mind gave way

under the strain of his work and he became insane. Death came mercifully quickly the following year.

Another of Henry’s New Year’s gifts was the Lady Elizabeth’s elegant translation into Latin, French,

and Italian of Katherine Parr’s Prayers and Meditations.

That January, the King appointed Cranmer to head an ecclesiastical commission to examine the validity

of certain church ceremonies, himself recommending that several time-hallowed rituals be abolished as

superstitious and smacking of papistry, among them the ringing of bells on the Eve of All Souls and

“the greater abuse of creeping to the Cross on Good Friday.” However, after Gardiner wrote a long

letter to Henry protesting about the changes, the King changed his mind. When Sir Anthony Denny

presented the final list to him for signing, Henry declined to do so. “I am now otherwise resolved,” he

said.

To the end, he would uphold his own brand of orthodoxy.

In 1546, thanks to the influence of Katherine Parr and John Cheke, Henry VIII finally gave his

attention to the universities, which had suffered during the Reformation. At Oxford, he refounded

Wolsey’s Cardinal College and renamed it Christ Church. The college, which was to teach theology,

Greek, and Hebrew, was more richly endowed than any of its rivals, and its chapel was to serve as a

cathedral for the newly founded See of Oxford. The first Dean was Dr. Richard Cox, Prince Edward’s

tutor, and the King himself was to act as Visitor. At Cambridge, Henry founded and endowed Trinity

College, replacing three mediaeval colleges, Michaelhouse, King’s Hall, and the Physwick Hostel.

Henry’s statue may still be seen above the entrance gate to Trinity College. Back in 1540, he had

endowed five regius professorships at Cambridge in Greek, Hebrew, civil law, divinity, and medicine.

Henry’s courtiers, who had been covetous of university land since the Dissolution, “gaped after” the

extent of the landed endowments that he gave to his colleges, but he rebuked them, saying, “I tell you,

Sirs, that I judge no land in England better bestowed than that which is given to our universities, for by

their maintenance our realm shall be well-governed when we be dead and rotten.”

Early in 1546, Surrey, acting with his usual rashness, lost fourteen of his captains and several English

standards to the French in a skirmish at St. Etienne outside Boulogne. In a wrathful mood, Henry

summoned him home and replaced him, to his bitter and loudly expressed chagrin, with his enemy,

Hertford. Paget urged Surrey to seek a lesser post, in which he might redeem his honour, but the hot-

headed Earl ignored this wise advice, and plotted instead how wreak vengeance on Hertford.

In February, the King was again laid low with a fever, which confined him to his apartments for three

weeks. By 10 March he was out of bed and losing money at cards to Lisle and others.

Soon afterwards,

making light of his weakness, he announced that he intended shortly to visit the furthest parts of his

realm, and when he met with envoys from Charles V on 22 March, he said that, although his leg was

still a little painful, his strong constitution had aided his recovery. His face, however, bore the

hallmarks of suffering, and the envoys concluded that his illness had been worse than he pretended.

The Queen spent these weeks nursing her husband; she may also have been writing her new devotional

work, a 120-page book entitled The Lamentations of a Sinner, in which she depicted the King as Moses,

leading his people out of “captivity and bondage.” Henry, she asserted, had shown her a holier way of

existence and delivered her from “the ignorance of her blind life.” In placing the emphasis on personal

faith, the Queen was edging dangerously close to the Protestant ethos, which may be why the book was

never printed during Henry’s lifetime. Eventually published in 1548, it was to become Katherine’s most

famous work.

Katherine’s enemies in the conservative faction had long suspected her of heresy. Above all, they

resented and feared her influence with the King and the Prince of Wales. It was now becoming clear

that Henry would not live to see Edward attain his majority, and the rival factions were girding their

loins for a power struggle over the regency. Gardiner, Wriothesley, and their Catholic followers were

determined to purge the court of heresy, and were even prepared to eliminate the Queen, just as

Cromwell had got rid of Anne Boleyn when she became a threat to his position. In the case of

Katherine Parr, the conservatives had no doubt that evidence of heresy could be found, if they were

watchful.

Matters played into their hands. During Lent, Norfolk’s younger son, Lord Thomas Howard, took

exception to the orthodox themes of the sermons preached by the royal chaplains, and openly criticised

them “in the Queen’s chamber and elsewhere in the court.” Hauled before the Privy Council, he was

given a severe reprimand.

In May, a fashionable court preacher, Dr. Edward Crome, who was also a

leading member of a secret Protestant circle based in London, was arrested for heresy. Under

interrogation, he revealed the names of his associates, among whom were several courtiers and a

Lincolnshire woman, Anne Askew. Anne, a self-confessed Protestant, had connections at court and was

acquainted with some of the Queen’s ladies, and the conservatives were convinced that she could give

them useful evidence about Katherine Parr. When Anne refused to talk, she was put on the rack, and

when she bravely maintained her silence and the Lieutenant of the Tower refused to torture her further,

Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and Sir Richard Rich themselves turned the wheel, but to no avail. Anne

was returned to prison, her body broken but her integrity intact.

Dr. Crome had named several members of the Privy Chamber, and in June, Gardiner had them all

arrested, namely Surrey’s friend, the poet Sir George Blagge; a page, Master Wourley; a Sewer, John

Lassels, who had been instrumental in bringing about Katherine Howard’s fall; and one William

Morice. The King was “sore offended” when he learned that Blagge had been arrested without his

knowledge and sentenced to burn for heresy, for he had a great affection for the young fool, whom he

had nicknamed his “pig.” Summoning Wriothesley forthwith, he berated him “for coming so near him,

even to his Privy Chamber” and made him draw up a pardon there and then. When he next saw Blagge,

Henry cried, “Ah, my pig! Are you safe again?”

“Yes, Sire,” answered Blagge, “and if Your Majesty had not been better than your bishops, your pig had

been roasted ere this time!”

The conservatives next attempted to accuse Sir Anthony and Lady Denny of heresy, but without

success. The Queen was another matter.

Early in July, Henry was again in low spirits. On the fourth, “although dressed to go to mass, he did not

go, nor did he go into his gardens, as his habit is in the summer.”

Two days later, he moved from

Greenwich to Whitehall, then fell “ill with colic.”

Since the conservatives were now in the ascendant,

he had with him Gardiner, Wriothesley, Norfolk, Paulet, Petre, and Sir Anthony Browne.

According to the Elizabethan writer John Foxe, who is the only source for what is said to have

happened next, the Queen angered Henry one day by becoming too opinionated while they were

debating a theological matter. When Katherine had gone, Henry grumbled to Gardiner that it was

“nothing much to my comfort in mine old days to be taught by my wife.” Gardiner sympathised, then

took a great risk and ventured to suggest that the Queen might be harbouring views of which Henry

would not approve. The King gave him permission to investigate further; the books in Katherine’s

closet were examined, and her ladies questioned. They gave away nothing, so Wriothesley obtained

Henry’s signature on a warrant for Katherine’s arrest, in order for her to be questioned also.

Fortuitiously, the warrant fell from the pocket of a councillor’s gown, and was found by a member of

the Queen’s household, who took it straight to her. Horrified at what it portended, Katherine took to her

bed and began screaming in panic. In his apartments, the King heard her hysterical cries, and sent his

physician, Dr. Wendy, to discover what was wrong. When Katherine told him, he urged her to compose

herself and dress, then go to the King and plead for forgiveness.

Katherine took his advice. She told Henry that, if she had dared dispute with one whom Nature had so

patently formed for superiority, it was only to divert him in his illness. “Is that so, sweetheart?” asked a

mollified Henry. “Then we are perfect friends again.”

The next day, as the King and Queen sat together in the privy garden, Lord Chancellor Wriothesley

arrived with a detachment of guards to arrest the Queen. Henry rose angrily, soundly berated him, and

beat him about the head, shouting, “Arrant knave! Beast! Fool!” The Chancellor made a hasty and

somewhat undignified exit.

Foxe’s tale sounds contrived, yet it was characteristic of Henry to behave in this way, testing the loyalty

of those around him and playing them off against one another, much as he had done in the past with

Cranmer and Gardiner.

Katherine Parr was safe, but Anne Askew and John Lassels were not so lucky. On 16 July, they were

burned at Smithfield.

The collapse of the plot against the Queen, and the return to court of Hertford in June, signalled the end

of the conservatives’ brief period of ascendancy, and also brought to a halt the witch-hunt for heretics.

Soon afterwards, Hertford formed a powerful alliance with Lord Lisle. Their ultimate aim was to

secure control of the government after the King’s death, and to this end they took care to lean “neither

on one side or the other” of the religious divide.

Both owed their power to their military

achievements, while Hertford was in a strong position as the uncle of the future King. Supported by the

influential and efficient Paget, who until the summer had appeared to favour the conservative faction,

they formed a formidable coalition.

Norfolk, careful of his own interests and aware that his influence was dwindling, swallowed his pride

and attempted to ally himself with the Seymour faction. But having obtained the King’s approval for a

marriage between Norfolk’s daughter Mary, Richmond’s widow, and Sir Thomas Seymour, the Duke

met with furious opposition from his son, Surrey, who also refused to countenance a match between

one of his daughters and Hertford’s son. Nor was Mary Howard in favour of the marriage proposed for

her. However, Surrey believed he could use it to his family’s advantage, and told Mary that, when the

King sent for her to congratulate her on her betrothal, she should use her feminine wiles on him,

become his mistress, and wield as much influence upon him “as Madame d’Etampes doth about the

French King.” Mary was outraged and cried that she would “cut her own throat” rather than “consent to

such a villainy.”

At this, she and her brother fell out—a rift that was to have tragic consequences.

Because of his failing health, the King now spent most of his time in the privacy of his secret lodgings,

“and used seldom, being not well at ease, to stir out of his chamber,” unless it was to walk in his privy

gardens. His temper was more volatile than ever; his legs gave him so much pain “that he became

exceedingly perverse and intractable”

and was inclined to lash out on the slightest provocation. Apart

from his Gentlemen and Chamber servants, the only persons admitted to see him were the Queen,

selected councillors “by special commandment,” and, on occasion, foreign ambassadors. Henry did not

want the world, or the courtiers who waited outside in the presence chamber, to think he was losing his

grasp on affairs.

But speculation about his health was rife, while those close to him wondered how many more physical

crises he could survive. Yet he would not give in, “was loath to hear any mention of death,”

and

behaved as if he still had many years ahead of him, ignoring the pain in his legs and bravely driving

himself to lead as normal a life as possible. Addressing the problem of mobility, he had two invalid

“chairs called trams” made for him, “for the King’s Majesty to sit in to be carried to and fro in his

galleries and chambers at Whitehall.” One was covered in quilted tawny velvet, the other in gold velvet

and silk, and both had embroidered footrests and shafts like sedan chairs. They were kept with the

King’s maps and pictures in his “secret study,” which now became known as the “chairhouse.”

According to Hall, “the King was now overgrown with corpulency and fatness, so that he became more

and more unwieldy. He could not go up or down stairs unless he was raised up or let down by an

engine.” Norfolk also claimed that Henry “could not go up and down the stairs, and was let up and

down by a device,”

and although there is no record of any mechanical pulley, hoist, or lift in any of

his palaces, this does not mean that such a contraption did not exist.

It was clear to his advisers that the King could not last long, and the power struggle for the regency

intensified, with each faction competing for supremacy. According to van der Delft, self-interest and

fear held men together.

The conflict was bitter, and the mounting tension such that heated quarrels

were liable to break out on the slightest pretext. Nor would the matter be resolved until blood had been

shed.

In one camp were Hertford, Lisle, Paget, Denny, Gates, Essex, and other reformists; in the other were

Gardiner, Wriothesley, Rich, Norfolk, Surrey, the ailing Browne, and their conservative partisans. The

Seymour-Dudley party was easily the dominant faction, and Chapuys and others were of the opinion

that no one was fitter or better suited to govern the Prince than his uncle Hertford,

but the opposition

was not giving in without a fight. Surrey, however, seemed to have his own agenda, and in some ways

to have lost touch with reality: he struck Lisle, insulted Rich, and warned that Hertford would “smart”

for usurping his command in France.

He also fell out with George Blagge, who opposed Surrey’s

obsessive determination to gain control of the Prince after the King’s death. In Surrey’s opinion,

Norfolk was the man best suited to be Edward’s guardian. Blagge said he would rather stab Surrey than

see the government in the hands of the Howards.

Hertford was suspected by many, with good reason, of holding radical views, and in September 1546

van der Delft expressed concern about the number of his clients and supporters that were constantly

about the King.

Hertford was on poor terms with everyone except Lisle and Paget, and at particular

loggerheads with Wriothesley, who had switched factions as soon as he realised the conservatives were

losing ground. In October, Lisle struck Gardiner during a fierce dispute “in full Council meeting” and

was expelled from the court, but in November he was back, unrepentant; soon afterwards he and

Hertford were overheard using “violent and opprobrious” words against Gardiner and Wriothesley.

The King struggled to maintain control over the warring factions, but his refusal to confront the issue at

stake only exacerbated the tension. Each councillor was fearful lest his enemies should try to blind

Henry’s eyes with “mists” or calumny.

The court began to seethe with mounting anxiety, which was

tangible to both the French and Spanish ambassadors, who found their sources of information drying up

as men refused to talk to them, fearing accusations of treasonable plotting.

The last important state pageant of the reign took place in August 1546, when Claud d’Annebaut, Lord

High Admiral of France, came to England with two hundred gentlemen to ratify a treaty of peace

between England and France. Because of the King’s infirmity, Prince Edward, with an escort of eighty

gold-clad gentlemen and eighty Yeomen of the guard, rode out to greet the Admiral at Hounslow. The

French were impressed no less by the boy’s horsemanship than by his Latin speech of welcome, which

radiated “high wit and great audacity.”

Having conducted the Admiral to Hampton Court, where he was received by Lord Chancellor

Wriothesley and the Privy Council, Edward was to deputise for his father on several occasions during

the ten days of receptions, banquets, masques, dances, and hunting trips that followed, and would also

show off his skill on the lute.

The Admiral’s retinue were accommodated in tents of cloth of gold and

velvet that had been erected in the palace gardens, where two new banqueting houses had been erected

and hung with tapestries threaded with gold and jewels.

On the second morning of the visit, d’Annebaut was received by the King in the presence chamber and

accompanied him to mass in the chapel royal. Another time, the King was present at an open-air

reception, standing under a marquee, but observers noticed him leaning heavily on the shoulders of the

Admiral and Archbishop Cranmer. He is said to have startled the Admiral by suggesting that “the mass

in both realms” be changed “into a communion service.”

It sounded as if the King was flirting with

Lutheranism, but he was probably just being provocative. Alternatively the tale could be retrospective

wishful thinking on the part of the man who wrote it, John Foxe.

At the end of their stay, the French were sent home with fine gifts of plate, horses, and dogs.

Prince

Edward then stayed briefly at Durham House, before taking up residence at Hunsdon, where he was to

remain for much of the rest of the year.

The King departed on his usual hunting progress, but he did not go beyond the Thames Valley and kept

to “houses remote from towns.” He stayed firstly at Oatlands, where he shot from a standing as the deer

were driven past him, and on one occasion rode with the hounds after a stag at Chertsey, shooting with

darts and spears. For three days he was “always at the chase.”

A ramp had been built at Oatlands to

enable him to mount his horse with ease; at other palaces the mounting blocks had been raised.

Later

in August, Henry was hunting at Chobham, Surrey, where his courtiers were housed in tents.

September, he set out for Guildford, but his exertions had been too much for him, and he was forced to

retire to Windsor. The progress was abandoned.

Wriothesley announced that the King had a cold, but van der Delft later discovered that he had actually

been in “great danger,” and the royal physicians had given up “all hope of recovery.”

Yet against the

odds, Henry recovered once more. By early October, he was out hunting and hawking again, and as

much in command of affairs as ever. He received van der Delft at Windsor and, on learning that the

ambassador himself had been ill, offered him the services of his own physician. However, he was not

well enough to give audience to the new French ambassador, Odet de Selve, and Paget had to deputise

for him.

In October, Sir Anthony Denny succeeded Sir Thomas Heneage as Groom of the Stool. Heneage had

served the King for twenty years, and the reasons for his dismissal are unclear; he appears to have left

court under a cloud.

Now in daily close proximity to the King, and in overall control of the Privy Chamber, the secret

lodgings, and the dry stamp, Denny became the dominant influence during the closing months of the

reign. Whichever faction Denny supported was likely to gain control of the regency, and Denny was a

close ally of the Seymours.

Denny’s job was no sinecure. After Henry’s death, Paget referred to his “painful service,”

indicating

that his dealings with the ailing King had not been easy or pleasant. But Denny had the support of his

brother-in-law, Sir John Gates, who carried out his orders and bullied the rest of the Privy Chamber into

submission. Gates was also Keeper of Pyrgo Park at Havering, where he resided, when not at court, in

regal luxury. Gates’s subordinates were William Clerk, who also had authority to use the dry stamp,

and an accountant, Nicholas Bristow.

Paget, Hertford’s friend and mentor, was also enormously influential. As Principal Secretary to the

King, he controlled all the letters and information entering or leaving the privy lodgings, and was in

overall control of the government when Henry was ill. It was Paget who helped forge the alliance

between Denny and the Seymour faction, which made Hertford, the potential future ruler de facto, the

most important man at court. Paget boasted of his confidential relationship with the King, asserting that

Henry “opened his pleasure to me alone in many things.” However, Denny and Sir William Herbert

insisted that Henry would always, “when Mr Secretary was gone, tell us what had passed between

them.”

This was yet another example of Henry’s policy of divide and rule.

The conservative faction was dealt a blow in November when Gardiner, who as recently as August had

been described by van der Delft as one of the King’s chief advisers,

incurred Henry’s displeasure by

refusing to exchange some episcopal lands with him. When Henry refused him entry to the privy

chamber, Gardiner concluded that Hertford had been working against him, and blamed him for his

exclusion. He asked Paget to intercede for him, but the King refused to grant him an audience.

In the middle of November, Henry moved to Whitehall to take “preparative medicine for certain

medicinal baths which he usually has at this season.”

Gardiner haunted the outward chambers of the

palace, but Henry still would not see him, and he was reduced to ensuring that he was seen in the

company of councillors who were in favour, so that people should not know of his disgrace. On 2

December he wrote to the King, craving an audience and offering to agree to the exchange of lands

after all, but a terse note in reply informed him that His Majesty could see “no cause why you should

molest us further” and instructed him to arrange the transfer of property through government officials

in London. The letter bore the sign manual and was witnessed by Denny and Gates.

Gardiner would

probably have been correct in concluding that his enemies were working to destroy him.

Soon afterwards, Henry went to stay at Oatlands.

There were rumours in London about his failing

health,

but he was out taking exercise on 7 December. However, it would be for the last time.

“The Rarest Man That Lived in His Time”

On 10 December, while he was still at Oatlands, Henry was laid low with a fever, and for thirty hours

his doctors battled to keep him alive.

To their relief, he rallied, and when van der Delft next saw him,

he told the ambassador he was completely recovered, but van der Delft could see from his appearance

that he was a sick man. His face was ashen, his body “greatly fallen away,” and although he was up and

dressed, he was very weak. Norfolk had told the ambassador that Henry “could not long endure.”

“In case any light bruit may rise to the contrary,” the Council instructed English ambassadors abroad to

give out that the King’s fever had been merely the result of “some grief of his leg”; they were to stress

that he was now, “thanks be to God, well rid of it, and would be better of it [for] a great while.”

With their ambitions about to reach fruition, the Seymour faction moved to destroy their enemies, the

Howards. Van der Delft had no doubt that Hertford and Lisle were the prime movers in the plot against

them,

and Gates was certainly active in the matter.

Norfolk was no real threat to Hertford’s

supremacy: he was ageing, he had failed to live up to his reputation as a military commander, and he

had alienated so many councillors by telling tales about them to the King that they had used their

influence to have him excluded from the inner circle of the Privy Council. Surrey, however, was a real

danger, for he had made no secret of his determination to secure the regency and the person of the

Prince on the King’s death.

Yet this was not all. Surrey’s former friend Sir Richard Southwell had betrayed him by laying before

the Council evidence about the Earl “that touched his fidelity to the King.” The Duchess of Richmond

had revealed that her “rash” brother had said of the Seymours that “these new men loved no nobility,

and if God called away the King they should smart for it.” Then she added the most damaging

testimony of all, that Surrey had replaced the coronet on his coat of arms with a crown, flanked by the

initials H. R.—for Henricus Rex. Government agents searched Mount Surrey and found armorial glass,

paintings, and plate bearing the arms of Edward the Confessor, which Surrey claimed he bore by right

of descent, even though Garter King of Arms had ruled “that it was not in his pedigree.”

It seemed

clear that the Earl had schemed to be King, but it is more likely that he was underlining—in his usual

foolish way—his superior claim to head the regency; he had already asked Paget to be Lord Chancellor

in his government.

Nevertheless, the Council were satisfied that Surrey had conspired to murder them

all, depose the King, and “take possession of the kingdom.”

On 12 December, Norfolk was arrested, and Surrey followed him to the Tower the next day, having

been apprehended at Whitehall during dinner.

While Henry had good cause to proceed against Surrey,

“his inexcusable severity” to Norfolk was hardly justified, but Hall imputes it to the effects of illness

and pain.

From his prison, Norfolk protested to the Council, “I have always shown myself a true man to my

sovereign,” and added, “I think surely there is some false man that have laid some great cause to my

charge, or else I had not be sent hither. I have had great enemies.”

With the fall of the Howards and Gardiner’s disgrace, the conservative faction was finished, leaving

Hertford’s party in a position of unchallenged dominance, both on the Privy Council and in the Privy

Chamber. Van der Delft was in no doubt that “the custody of the Prince and the government of the

realm” would be entrusted to Hertford, who had “obtained authority with the King.”

It was significant

that during December and January, Council meetings would be held at Hertford’s London house rather

than at court.

Once he was able to travel, the King moved in slow stages to London, lodging on the way at Esher,

Nonsuch, and Wimbledon, before arriving at Whitehall. After making short visits to Ely Place in

Holborn and Hampton Court, he stayed at Greenwich for the last time on 22 December, then finally

returned to Whitehall, plainly very ill. Whereas, in August, he had paid less than £5 (£1,500) for

medicines and sickroom comforts, in December the bill rose to £25 (£7,500).

This included purchases

of perfume to sweeten his chambers and sheets, “two pairs of slippers newly devised to warm feet,”

and a new close stool upholstered in black velvet edged with a black silk fringe, with arms and a lifting

seat.

The treatments prescribed by Henry’s doctors included applications of rose water and “eyebright

water,” ointments for haemorrhoids and the stomach, comfits of cinammon and green ginger, and

regular blanket baths by the barber-surgeons.

On Christmas Eve, the Queen and the King’s daughters left Whitehall on his orders, to spend Christmas

at Greenwich. Prince Edward was at Ashridge, and at New Year Katherine sent him a double portrait of

herself and the King, urging him to “meditate upon the distinguished deeds of his father” whenever he

looked at it.

The Prince wrote Henry a letter in Latin, assuring him he would strive to follow his

example “in virtue, wisdom and piety.”

It is unlikely he was aware of how ill the King was.

Henry spent the festive season in total seclusion; the court was closed and only “a handful of

councillors and three or four Gentlemen of the Chamber” were allowed access to the King.

They kept

at bay those who might exert undesirable influence over him, and ensured that little information about

his condition reached the outside world, with the result that we know very little about what was

happening to him during these final weeks. Nevertheless, van der Delft, and many others, guessed that

Henry was dying: he was said to be “in great danger,” and his physicians were in despair.

Before he left for Boulogne in the summer of 1544, the King had drawn up his Will, in which were

enshrined the provisions of the recent Act of Succession. On the evening of 26 December, he

summoned Hertford, Paget, Lisle, and Denny to his chamber, and asked for the Will to be read to him.

He then drew up a list of sixteen councillors of the reformist persuasion to serve on a Council of

Regency, but made it clear that this was to be an equal coalition and that no one man was to wield

power. Hertford, Dudley, Paget, Sadler, Cranmer, and Russell were included, but Henry refused to have

Gardiner because “he was a wilful man and not meet to be about his son,” and of so troublesome a

nature that no man but himself could rule him.

In choosing the rest, Henry, unwittingly or not,

prepared the way for the establishment of a radical Protestant government.

Of course, the King’s arrangements for the regency ran contrary to Hertford’s expectations. Paget, who

was “privy in the beginning, proceeding and ending of the Will,” wrote it out himself, and although it

was said to be signed “with our own hand in our Palace of Westminster” on 30 December in the

presence of eleven witnesses, the dry stamp was used, as Paget later admitted,

and it must have been

used after 23 January, because it refers to Sir Thomas Seymour as a privy councillor, and he was not

admitted to the Privy Council until that date. The Will is said to have been given to Hertford on 30

December for safekeeping, but it appears that Paget had it in a box and Hertford kept the key.

Henry, therefore, did not sign the Will at all; in order to retain control over his councillors, he may have

deferred doing so until the last possible moment, and then left it too late, leaving his councillors with

no choice but to use the sign manual. It is also possible that, without the King’s knowledge, they altered

the Will before the dry stamp was applied, but dated it to a day when the King had been well enough to

sign it.

However, had this been done, one would have expected the provisions to be more heavily

weighted in favour of Hertford’s leadership, although the motive may have been merely to increase the

size of individual bequests. Whatever the circumstances, no one thought to question the validity of the

King’s Will at the time.

Henry was stricken with fever again on 1 January 1547.

On 8 January, there were rumours that he was

dead, because, “whatever amendment is announced, few persons have access to his chamber.”

Two

days later, the ulcer on his leg had to be cauterised, an agonising process in the days before

anaesthetics. De Selve commented, “Whatever his health, it can only be bad, and [he] will not last

long.”

On 10 January, Queen Katherine and the Lady Mary returned to Whitehall. Although Henry was a little

better, they were not allowed to see him for the present;

it is not clear whether it was Henry, or his

doctors, or the Seymour faction who kept them away.

The Queen was not included in the Council of Regency, probably because Henry disapproved of

women interfering in politics. However, he left her handsomely provided for, with £3,000 (£900,000)

in plate, jewels, and furnishings, and £1,000 (£300,000) in cash, in recognition of “the great love,

obedience and chastity of life being in our wife and Queen.”

Surrey was tried at the Guildhall for high treason on 13 January, and spoke up vigorously in his own

defence, but his case was prejudiced from the start because, the day before, Norfolk had formally

admitted his guilt in concealing his son’s treason. The King, although confined to his sickroom,